Question on adult bilinguals and codeswitching

[Maria Luisa Lorusso]

<Another thought which may support the idea that in
<some languages the masculine (neuter?) gender is
<unmarked: in French, borrowed nouns from other
<languages automatically take the masculine gender
<(e.g. le shopping, le parking, le karaoke...). This is
<the standard in the language for borrowed lexicon, and
<not particular to bilinguals. On a personal note, as a
<French-English bilingual, I was fascinated to read
<this message as I have often noticed myself doing the
<same thing noted with your Spanish-English informants,
<that is inserting an English word into a French
<sentence and giving it the masculine gender by
<default.
<
<Lorraine Rice

Still, it would be interesting to know why this is not the rule in Italian:
borrowed nouns, be it from French, English or other languages, take
different genders (according to their supposed translation into
Italian?)  Examples of feminine borrowed nouns: la creme, la soubrette, la
mousse, la lobby, la performance, la policy, la candid camera, la mission,
la glasnost, la  siesta, etc... (too many to be exceptions). The same
happens in code-switching by bilinguals.
Any suggestion?
Maria Luisa Lorusso

Maria Luisa Lorusso
Psychologist and Neurolinguist
Unit of Cognitive Psychology and Neuropsychology
Dept. of  Neuroriabilitation II
Scientific Institute "E. Medea"
23842 Bosisio Parini (LC) - Italy
Tel. 0039-(0)31-877581
Fax 0039-(0)31-877499
E-mail: mluisa at bp.lnf.it